The death of actor Chadwick Boseman, in August 2020, directly affected the narrative of the mega-success, Black Panther. Production on the sequel, Wakanda Forever began shooting in June 2021, with several COVID-19 issues and many, MANY changes to the 5 (!) scripts that were worked on.
Right off the bat, T’Challa’s death will be addressed and obviously affects the lives of subjects and relatives. “I am the queen of the most powerful nation in the world and my entire family is gone,” says Queen Ramonda, by Angela Bassett. “Didn’t I give it all?”, we see in the teaser presented at Comicon 2022.
The teaser, that confirmed the return of familiar faces, like Lupita Nyong’o who was missing, and that we will have Namor (Tenoch Huerta). On the soundtrack? The Bob Marley and The Wailers classic, No Woman No Cry, and the chorus, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, which the images suggest is far from the truth.
Great success of the band’s album was recorded live, in 1975, and has a curious title, because it uses the “No, Woman, Nuh Cry”, which is a form that Jamaicans use to say “no”. The lyrics recall the friends who helped Bob Marley when he was very poor in Kingston and for that reason he gave authorship credit to one of them, Vincent Ford, to receive royalty checks. Vincent was a cook in Trench Town, the Kingston ghetto that is mentioned in the lyrics.
Before the live album, No Woman No Cry appeared on the 1974 album Natty Dread without attracting much attention and reveals a less politicized side of Marley, almost like an adult lullaby and makes a reflection on life in a difficult place ( Good friends we’ve had, oh good friends we’ve lost along the way) and how fame can’t take away the singer’s roots (In this bright future, you can’t forget your past).
And it’s precisely this reference, to Chadwick’s death, that made the choice of the song more interesting.
It is perfect.
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